


How It Feels When We Fall

by veeagainst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 08:24:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veeagainst/pseuds/veeagainst
Summary: Marlene and Lily share some moments during the war.





	How It Feels When We Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago and just found it. I hope you enjoy it!

            It was three weeks before Christmas when Marlene finally met the famous Lily Evans.  Two months before, she had found herself assigned to work in the same department of the Ministry and, despite her best attempts to avoid contact with other Order members outside of official meetings, she had to see her at the office Christmas party. 

            Marlene and everyone else were halfway into a cauldron of mulled wine when the head of the department called for people to read some Christmas poetry.  There was general laughter and then a flurry of activity around a redhead in dark green robes in the corner.  Someone had produced a small book; she was going to read a poem. 

“‘In the bleak midwinter,’” Lily read, and all around the room, heads turned away from goblets and conversations and looked at her.

            She smiled and didn’t look up from the leather-bound book on her lap.  Marlene watched that smile and forgot the goblet branding its sides into her palms; she kept her hands wrapped tightly around it, barely noticing the burn. 

Lily opened her perfectly shaped mouth and continued the poem.

************************

“Lily Evans, right?” Marlene said, having managed to catch her alone two hours later.  The wine had made her too warm and she couldn’t look at any part of Lily for too long without feeling dizzy.  This had all the makings of a terrible idea.  She wondered if she could, in one fell swoop, compromise the Order, piss off James Potter, and lose a large chunk of her dignity.

“That’s me,” Lily said cheerfully.  She didn’t seem too badly off for having a fiancé in an undisclosed location, fighting a war.  “You’re Marlene?”

“Yes,” Marlene said, pronouncing the word carefully.  “I’ve seen you around.”

Lily laughed.  She had a lovely throat and not a single scar anywhere that Marlene could see.  “I’ve seen you around as well,” she said.  “Did you enjoy the party?”

“Ha,” Marlene said, setting down her empty goblet, “I think I’ve enjoyed the hell out of it.”  She raised an eyebrow at Lily’s startled expression.  “Should we walk each other home?”

“Oh,” Lily said, “but I live in Kensington.  It’s much too far to walk in this cold.”

Marlene shrugged.  “Walk you to the Floo station, then?”

Lily hesitated only a fraction of a second.  “All right.” 

************************

 “I love this attempt to get us into the Christmas spirit despite the war,” Lily said as they stood outside the pub.  Marlene hummed agreement and struggled into her robe.  Lily reached behind her absently, as if they were already familiar, and tugged her arm through the trailing sleeve.  “I thought I’d do well to read that poem.  I love to see wizards struggling to wrap their minds around Muggle religiosity.”   

            Marlene got her robe straightened out and turned to look at Lily.  Her cheeks were bright red with the cold, her grin lopsided and starting to slip.  “Are you worried about James?” she asked.

            Lily shrugged and her right hand flew to her left to twist around her engagement ring.  “He’ll be back,” she said.  “I can’t worry about things I can’t change.”

            Marlene chewed her lip and waited until Lily looked back up at her.  Then she said, “You don’t want to go home alone.”  She put a cigarette between her lips and took a drag without lighting it.  “Lonely house, empty bed.” 

            Lily hesitated, then reached out and took the cigarette.  Her fingers grazed Marlene’s teeth.  She put it between her own lips.  “Course I don’t,” she said.  “Got a light?”

************************

            Marlene woke up freezing in the night and found all of the blankets bunched around their waists.  Marlene rolled onto her side, gathered up the blankets, and then paused, looking at Lily.  She slept on her stomach, one hand curled underneath her collarbone.  The position gave her an oddly vulnerable, childlike look.  Marlene reached out and put her hand on Lily’s back; her skin was freezing to the touch.  For a second, Marlene could believe that Lily had already been killed in the war and somehow that seemed more true than her living presence in Marlene’s bed. 

            Lily opened her green, green eyes and said, “Don’t think about it.  It won’t make you happy.”  She pushed herself up gracefully on both arms and kissed Marlene’s forehead.  “Go back to sleep.”

Marlene closed her eyes and obeyed. 

************************

            “This isn’t a question of torture…”

            “It is,” Lily snapped.  “The use of unforgivables by aurors?  And now by us?”

            “It’s a question of security,” Mad-Eye continued.  “Something’s got to be done.”

            Lily slapped her hand against the tabletop.  “I won’t do it.”  She looked at Marlene, who hadn’t said a word throughout the entire meeting.  Intensity distorted her face.  “We’re supposed to be better than them.”

            “We are better than them,” Remus said.  He looked drawn and pale, as if he hadn’t slept in days.  “We shouldn’t use the Cruciatus or the Imperius…”

            “There are three unforgivables,” Lily said.  “And if we use any of them, we might as well use all of them.”

            “That’s not--”

            “Don’t be--”

            “We have to fight fire with--”

            Lily shoved her chair back and stood up.  “That’s it,” she said, voice shaking.  “That’s it.  I won’t listen to this anymore.”  She yanked her cloak off of the back of her chair with such force that a seam ripped.  “This isn’t the military.  You can’t order me to do this.”  She turned and marched out of the room, not looking back. 

Marlene looked at her fellow Order members, at the averted eyes and embarrassed faces, and stood up too.  “Someone ought to go after her,” she said, and didn’t wait for nods of approval.  She squeezed behind chairs and out the door. 

She caught up to Lily in front of a line of shop windows, just as the soft lines of her back threatened to disappear into a crowd of Muggles.  She put out her hand and grabbed Lily’s arm.  “Lily, wait!”

Lily spun, swiping at her eyes, and hissed, “Why’d you follow me?”

Marlene dropped her arm and shook her head, no idea what to say.  Lily stood before her, an avenging angel with her red hair silhouetted in the streetlamps, looking all the more beautiful for her ferocity.  “Did they send you after me?” she demanded.

Marlene found her voice.  “I came after you, Lily, on my own.”

Lily’s face registered fury stopped short.  All around them, last-minute Christmas shoppers brushed past, their bags tearing at Marlene’s arms, her legs, her long hair.  Marlene wondered if the two of them looked as tiny and vulnerable as she felt, two solitary women standing awash in a sea of moving people. 

Lily put out her hand unsteadily as if she meant to touch Marlene, but then let her arm drop.  “I thought it would be different,” she said.  “Stupid, naïve, but I thought it would be different to be in a wizarding war.  I didn’t know that fighting would be like this.  I thought we’d all adhere to some archaic rules of honour…”

Marlene was a pureblood, and she had nothing to say.  Human nature was a universal: every facet of it.  She stepped forward and wrapped Lily in her arms, protecting her from the crowd.  This felt more substantial and less exposed.  Lily hesitated, as if she was about to say “James,” and Marlene tightened her hold.

She said, “I can protect you too.” 

Lily swallowed against her shoulder.  “I want you to take me home.”

************************

            There was something wrong.  Marlene kept her right hand on Lily’s neck, her fingers caught in the tangled auburn hair there, but she reached across her lover’s sleeping form and took both of their wands off the table beside the couch.  Lily stirred faintly, pressing Marlene further into the cushions, and Marlene sat up halfway and listened hard. 

            There was something moving outside in the dark street.  The clock above the stove had its hands on the 4 and the 12.  Marlene sat up further, trying to see out the window into the shadows in the alley.  Whatever it was, it didn’t move organically; it jerked and shimmered out of focus.  Marlene’s mouth went dry. 

            “What is it?” Lily hissed, suddenly propping herself up on one elbow.  “What’s outside?”

            Marlene shook her head and eased herself back down onto the couch.  Lily traced her fingers across Marlene’s forehead and then stood up.  “We’d best find out,” she said.  “It’s dark magic.  I can feel it.”

            Marlene would have hesitated, would have gathered her thoughts, but Lily was already halfway to the door. 

************************

            Another night, another raid.  Marlene stood outside the abandoned warehouse, wand at the ready, listening to the river whispering against the docks.  She had cast all of the charms she could think of; if anything larger than a rat moved within a fifty foot perimeter, she’d know. 

            The problem was that sometimes even the rats seemed to work against them.

            Five raids in the past week; two attacks on Order members; one serious injury and a host of smaller ones.  Marlene couldn’t stay awake during the day and couldn’t sleep at night.  James had come back for a weekend and then left again and Lily had been distant ever since. 

Marlene wasn’t thinking about it.  She kept her hands at her sides and willed herself to stay awake.  It was brutally cold outside and the little snow that was falling dissolved instantly into grimy puddles.  Marlene was not thinking about it.  She counted snowflakes and she listened to the river and she did not think about it. 

            Something exploded inside.  Marlene was on her feet in a second, but she couldn’t seem to wake up, everything seemed to be moving slowly, her legs, her arms, her long hair whipping behind her.  She flung the door open just as Lily ran out of it.  They collided and tangled, then went down hard on the ground.  Something hit Marlene in the side.  Then she felt her ankle twist and break, and everything went momentarily black.  There was a horrific crack, worse than her ankle, and then they were still lying together, but it wasn’t cold anymore.  Lily was bloody and it was soaking through Marlene’s open robe. 

            “Marlene,” Lily said, and her voice sounded shaky and loud.  “Marlene, Marlene…  Oh god, I’m sorry, Marlene…”

            Marlene tried to say, “Don’t be,” and “Just don’t let it happen again,” and “I don’t care, so long as you’re here,” but the words wouldn’t leave her throat.  There was something blocking the way…  


End file.
